VBS Week was Out of this World!

BY REV. DARREN STEADMAN

It’s dark in outer space. So when we walked into the CCE Worship building this week, and the first things we saw are the round, red planet Mars, and twinkling stars against black backgrounds, we knew we were somewhere else. We had left planet Earth behind, and our mission had begun … To Mars and Beyond!

That was the theme for this year’s CCE Vacation Bible School: To Mars and Beyond! From Tuesday until Friday, we sent over 70 kids on missions each day to collect Hope, Faith, Thankfulness and Kindness to help fuel the Starship Galaxion. The kids … excuse me, the Voyagers learned biblical stories that illustrated our daily mission, they conducted scientific experiments, created works of art and played games outside, all to help generate and collect the required Elements of the Day: Faith, Kindness, Thankfulness, or Hope.

From my perspective, I saw dozens of adult volunteer leaders stooping down to help the little ones with their projects, and I saw our amazing teenagers answering lots of questions, and shepherding their groups from station to station. I saw the Voyagers dancing along with our VBS songs, projected onto screens in our space station. I saw wide-eyed wonder on tiny faces as I, the Mission Commander, and my sidekick-robot-puppet-friend jump-started everyone’s excitement each morning.

Vacation Bible School is no vacation for the grown-ups, at least not in terms of physical energy reserves. Every minute is filled with lesson-preparation, sorting supplies, snack-distribution, mess-cleaning and non-stop children’s mentorship. By noon, all the volunteers have spent a full day’s supply of energy.

But, energy exchange works differently in outer space. Just like the missions we charged the Voyagers with, the VBS adult and teen leaders were called to generate and collect Faith, Kindness, Thankfulness and Hope. And when the kids learn something new about Jesus’ story, and try out the daily missions of Kindness, Thankfulness, etc., us leaders absorbed just as much of that energy, if not much more. Thank you all: volunteer leaders, adult and teen, and the Pelkey family for coordinating and delivering an Out-of-this-World experience!

The end of VBS week is exciting and exhausting, but it is also exhilarating. Dozens of kids have new stories swimming around in their dreams and in their hearts. Faith and Hope are unlimited resources that we can share abundantly, yet never deplete. Kindness and Thankfulness fuel the giver just as much as the receiver. And, we all now know the Vector Verse by heart: God “is able to do far beyond what we can ask or imagine by the power of his love at work within us!” (Eph. 3:20)

God is at work within us when we spend our energy resources to the maximum, yet afterward, we have considerably more Hope, Thankfulness, Kindness and Faith than we did to begin with. Glory to God! That type of energy exchange is enough to take us … to Mars and Beyond!!